Nittaewo

Nittaewo
Grouping	Cryptid
Sub grouping	Hominid
Country	Sri Lanka
Region	South Asia
Habitat	Rainforest

Last updated July 11, 2024

Nittaewo (or Nittevo) were said to be a small tribe of small bigfoot or Yeti-like hominid cryptid native to Sri Lanka. No archeological evidence has been found to prove the existence of these humanoids, but they are ubiquitous in Veddha mythology and Sri Lankan folklore.

Etymology

Hugh Nevill explained that, "nittaewo" may be a derivative from "niṣāda", a term used by the Indo-Aryans to describe the more primitive tribes which inhabited India when the Indo-Aryans invaded.^[1] The Sinhalese form of this word was "nigadiwa" or "nishadiwa," from which "nittaewo" may have derived.^[2] A possible alternative etymology given by George Eberhart is "niya-atha" ("one who possesses nails").^[2]

Description

The nittaewo was described as being even smaller than the diminutive Veddahs, only between 3 and 4 ft (0.91 and 1.22 m) in height, with the females being even shorter. They were covered in hair, which was often said to be reddish in colour, and were said to have very short, powerful arms with short, long-clawed hands. Unlike monkeys, they walked upright always and had no tails.^[1]

The nittaewo lived in small parties, and slept in caves or among the branches of trees, in leaf-nests of their own design. They had a varied diet, eating whatever raw game they could catch, including squirrels, small deer, tortoises, lizards, and sometimes even crocodiles. They did not use tools, instead disembowelling their prey with their long claws or hooked nails, allowing them to feed on the entrails. They were said to have a sort of language of their own, a "sort of burbling, or birds' twittering," which a handful of Veddahs could understand. The Veddahs themselves were the enemies of the nittaewo, which had no defense against the Veddahs’ bows and arrows. It was said that whenever a nittaewo came across a sleeping Veddah, it would disembowel them with its claws.^[1]

During an exploration of caves at Kudimbigala, army captain A. T. Rambukwelle discovered a stone building, "reminiscent of the miniature stonehenge" in the forest. The Veddahs in the area told him that it was "the nittaewa altar," but Ivan Mackerle later discovered that it had been built by Veddah monks.^[3]

Attestations

The last of the nittaewo were said to have been exterminated by the Veddahs of Leanama during the late 18th century, when they were rounded up into a cave, the entrance of which was then blocked up with brushwood which was set alight, suffocating the trapped nittaewo over three days. The cave's position was lost when the Veddahs of Leanama themselves became extinct just a few generations later. Bernard Heuvelmans estimated that the genocide took place in around 1800, whilst Ivan Mackerle estimates 1775.^[3]

The story of the extermination was first reported by explorer Hugh Nevill in 1887, who was told of it by a Sinhalese hunter, who was himself told by an elderly Leanama Veddah, who himself had been told by a relative of his named Koraleya.^[4] Despite being a fourth-hand account, the story was confirmed in 1915, when Frederick Lewis was given the same information by several informants in Uva and Punawa Pattu. According to an old Veddah named Dissam Hamy, the nittaewo were exterminated no more than five generations earlier than his visit—Dissam Hamy's grandfather had taken part in the genocide. Lewis made inquiries of other people in the village, and in another village, and was given the same story.^[5]^[1]

Sightings

1963

In 1963, Sri Lankan army captain A. T. Rambukwelle led an expedition to the caves of Kudimbigala to search for evidence of the nittaewo. He discovered the shells of molluscs and vertebrae and shells of turtles, animals which the nittaewo were said to have fed on.^[3]

1984

The first and so far only recorded sighting of the nittaewo since the 18th century supposedly occurred in 1984, when one was allegedly seen by the Spanish anthropologist Salvador Martinez. He claimed that the nittaewo he saw was human-like, with a coat of long hair with scabs, and emitted unintelligible sounds before fleeing into the forest.

2019

In 2019, sightings re-surged again starting in several locations such as Walasmulla and Bambaragala and Anuradhapura which often caused panic in certain villages.^[6] Villagers reported the creature to be totally black, gorilla faced and having long claws which was different from the Veddah descriptions, leading to the possibility of a fraud.

Theories

Mistaken identity

In 1945, noted primatologist William C. Osman Hill made detailed examination of the nittaewo, and came up with several plausible identities. Some sort of Sri Lankan gibbon was regarded by both him and Bernard Heuvelmans as a fairly good candidate, as these animals do conform to the nittaewo's description in a number of ways. They are small, only around 3 ft (0.91 m) when standing upright, live in troops, and are the only apes to habitually walk bipedally. Unlike many other apes, they will eat animals such as insects, birds, and eggs. Although a far cry from the savage nittaewo, which was said to disembowel people and kill crocodiles, Heuvelmans notes that the Veddahs may simply have "blackened the character of the greatest enemy".^[1]

However, one argument against this theory is the fact that, in India, gibbons—the Indian species are specifically hoolock gibbons (Hoolock spp.), the only modern ape known from India—are only found east of the Ganges and south of the Brahmaputra. They are not known from Sri Lanka, and Heuvelmans writes that it would be surprising to find them there. Gibbons also have famously long, bandy arms, unlike the short arms of the nittaewo.^[1]

Hugh Nevill wrote that one of his informants compared the nittaewo to an orangutan. Orangutans have sometimes been reported from mainland India, but Heuvelmans notes that this ape is too large, heavy, arboreal, vegetarian, and solitary to make a good nittaewo identity.^[1]

Another suggestion is that the nittaewo could have been bears, which are known to walk bipedally, and leave infamously human-like footprints. However, Sri Lanka's only known bear, the sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), although dangerous when disturbed and liable to inflict severe wounds with it hooked claws, is among the most quadrupedal of bears, only rarely walking upright. Its fur is also usually black, turning red on the surface only occasionally, and it is an insectivore, not a predator.^[2]^[1]

Unknown human race

Another theory is that the nittaewo could have been a Sri Lankan population of Negritos, a race native to the Philippines who are about 2 in (51 mm) shorter on average than the Veddahs, who he suggests may have inhabited Sri Lanka before the arrival of the Veddahs. South and Southeast Asia were subject to a great number of racial migrations, with each new race displacing or pushing out the previous rulers, and it is possible that this is what happened with the nittaewo and the Veddahs. However, Heuvelmans concludes by writing that the Negritos "do not look in the least like the description of the nittaewo". Eberhart also records the theory that they may have been some unknown short-statured race of people, similar to the Negritos, the Semang of Malaysia, or the Andaman islanders.

Primitive hominoid

Hill and Heuvelmans theorised that the nittaewo could have been a surviving Pithecanthropus (now Homo erectus ), which is known from Southeast Asia. According to Heuvelmans, Homo erectus no doubt once inhabited the rest of Asia before being pushed down into the Southeast by one of the waves of human invaders mentioned above. Before this decline, however, they might easily have reached Sri Lanka from India when the island was still connected to the mainland—which happened several times prior to 5000 B.C.—and survived until recent times.

Hill also wrote that the size of Homo erectus was consistent with the nittaewo, but this is untrue, as Homo erectus was much closer to a normal human height, creating a problem with the theory. However, Heuvelmans notes that, if they did reach Sri Lanka, they might well have developed into a pygmy race, as often happens with species isolated on islands. The Homo erectus theory was favoured by both Hill and Heuvelmans.

Captain A. T. Rambukwella also theorised that the nittaewo could be a Sri Lankan species of the African Australopithecus , the females of which reached 4.3 ft (1.3 m).

However, the discovery of remains of Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2004 has also lead to the belief that they could even be a similar species existing in Sri Lanka.^[7]

Related Research Articles

Homininae, also called "African hominids" or "African apes", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini ―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus Pan is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas and to humans and chimpanzees. There are two living species of Panina and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species. Traces of extinct Homo species, including Homo floresiensis have been found with dates as recent as 40,000 years ago. Organisms in this subfamily are described as hominine or hominines.

The Vedda, or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Vedda minority in Sri Lanka may become completely assimilated. Most speak Sinhala instead of their indigenous languages, which are nearing extinction. It has been hypothesized that the Vedda were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since before the arrival of other ethnic groups in India.

Gibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical forests from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast India to southern China and Indonesia.

Apes are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, which together with its sister group Cercopithecidae form the catarrhine clade, cladistically making them monkeys. Apes do not have tails due to a mutation of the TBXT gene. In traditional and non-scientific use, the term ape can include tailless primates taxonomically considered Cercopithecidae, and is thus not equivalent to the scientific taxon Hominoidea. There are two extant branches of the superfamily Hominoidea: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids, or great apes.

Meganthropus is an extinct genus of non-hominin hominid ape, known from the Pleistocene of Indonesia. It is known from a series of large jaw and skull fragments found at the Sangiran site near Surakarta in Central Java, Indonesia, alongside several isolated teeth. The genus has a long and convoluted taxonomic history. The original fossils were ascribed to a new species, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus, and for a long time was considered invalid, with the genus name being used as an informal name for the fossils.

Java Man is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Indonesia). Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossil ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus.

Paranthropus robustus is a species of robust australopithecine from the Early and possibly Middle Pleistocene of the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, about 2.27 to 0.87 million years ago. It has been identified in Kromdraai, Swartkrans, Sterkfontein, Gondolin, Cooper's, and Drimolen Caves. Discovered in 1938, it was among the first early hominins described, and became the type species for the genus Paranthropus. However, it has been argued by some that Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus robustus.

Ketheeswaram temple is an ancient Hindu temple in Mannar, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the oldest temple in Sri Lanka with at least 1400 years of evidence. Overlooking the ancient Tamil port towns of Manthai and Kudiramalai, the temple has lain in ruins, been restored, renovated and enlarged by various royals and devotees throughout its history. Thirukketheeswaram is one of the Pancha Ishwarams dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva and is venerated by Shaivas throughout the continent. Throughout its history, the temple has been administered and frequented by Sri Lankan Hindu Tamils. Its famous tank, the Palavi tank, is of ancient antiquity and was restored from the ruins. Thirukketheeswaram is one of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams of Shiva glorified in the poems of the Tevaram.

Rodi or Rodiya are an untouchable Buddhist social group or caste amongst the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. Their status was very similar to all the Untouchable castes of India with segregated communities, ritualised begging, economically weakest section of the society.

The Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, formerly known as the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary or Hollongapar Reserved Forest, is an isolated protected area of evergreen forest located in Assam, India. The sanctuary was officially constituted and renamed in 1997. Set aside initially in 1881, its forests used to extend to the foothills of the Patkai mountain range.

Wushan Man is a set of fossilised remains of an extinct, undetermined non-hominin ape found in central China in 1985. The remains are dated to around 2 million years ago and were originally considered to represent a subspecies of Homo erectus.

Balangoda Man refers to hominins from Sri Lanka's late Quaternary period. The term was initially coined to refer to anatomically modern Homo sapiens from sites near Balangoda that were responsible for the island's Mesolithic 'Balangoda Culture'. The earliest evidence of Balangoda Man from archaeological sequences at caves and other sites dates back to 38,000 BCE, and from excavated skeletal remains to 30,000 BC, which is also the earliest reliably dated record of anatomically modern humans in South Asia. Cultural remains discovered alongside the skeletal fragments include geometric microliths dating to 28,500 BC, which together with some sites in Africa is the earliest record of such stone tools.

The prehistory of Sri Lanka covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Iron Age of the country until the Pre Anuradhapura period in 543 BC.

Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Its specimens are among the first recognizable members of the genus Homo.

The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo ; Gorilla ; Pan ; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.

The Incredible Human Journey is a five-episode, 300-minute, science documentary film presented by Alice Roberts, based on her book by the same name. The film was first broadcast on BBC television in May and June 2009 in the UK. It explains the evidence for the theory of early human migrations out of Africa and subsequently around the world, supporting the Out of Africa Theory. This theory claims that all modern humans are descended from anatomically modern African Homo sapiens rather than from the more archaic European and Middle Eastern Homo neanderthalensis or the indigenous Chinese Homo pekinensis.

Prehistoric Indonesia is a prehistoric period in the Indonesian archipelago that spanned from the Pleistocene period to about the 4th century CE when the Kutai people produced the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia. Unlike the clear distinction between prehistoric and historical periods in Europe and the Middle East, the division is muddled in Indonesia. This is mostly because Indonesia's geographical conditions as a vast archipelago caused some parts — especially the interiors of distant islands — to be virtually isolated from the rest of the world. West Java and coastal Eastern Borneo, for example, began their historical periods in the early 4th century, but megalithic culture still flourished and script was unknown in the rest of Indonesia, including in Nias and Toraja. The Papuans on the Indonesian part of New Guinea island lived virtually in the Stone Age until their first contacts with modern world in the early 20th century. Even today living megalithic traditions still can be found on the island of Sumba and Nias.

The phylogenetic split of the superfamily Hominoidea (apes) into the Hylobatidae (gibbons) and Hominidae families is dated to the early Miocene, roughly 20 to 16 million years ago.

The Sinhalese monarchy has its origins in the settlement of North Indian Indo-Aryan immigrants to the island of Sri Lanka. The Landing of Vijay as described in the traditional chronicles of the island, the Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa and Culavamsa, and later chronicles, recount the date of the establishment of the first Sinhala Kingdom in 543 BC when Prince Vijaya, an Indian Prince, and 700 of his followers are claimed to have landed on the island of Sri Lanka and established the Kingdom of Tambapanni. In Sinhalese mythology, Prince Vijaya and followers are told to be the progenitors of the Sinhalese people. However according to the story in the Divyavadana, the immigrants were probably not led by a scion of a royal house in India, as told in the romantic legend, but rather may have been groups of adventurous and pioneering merchants exploring new lands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missing link (human evolution)</span> Non-scientific term for a transitional fossil

"Missing link" is a hypothetical or recently-discovered transitional fossil. It is often used in popular science and in the media for any new transitional form. The term originated to describe the hypothetical intermediate form in the evolutionary series of anthropoid ancestors to anatomically modern humans (hominization). The term was influenced by the pre-Darwinian evolutionary theory of the Great Chain of Being and the now-outdated notion (orthogenesis) that simple organisms are more primitive than complex organisms.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals, Routledge, ISBN 978-1138977525
1 2 3 Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology ABC-CLIO, Inc. ISBN 1-57607-283-5
1 2 3 Mackerle, Ivan Potřeboval Nittaewo oltář? :: Ivan Mackerle mackerle.cz [Accessed 4 June 2019]
↑ Nevill, Hugh "The Nittaewo of Ceylon," The Taprobanian 1 #3 (February 1886)
↑ Lewis, Frederick "Notes on Animal and Plant Life in the Vedda Country," Spolia Zeylanica 10 (1915)
↑ Reports of more sightings of Nittaewo in Walasmulla - Hiru News , retrieved 2022-11-21
↑ "Dagger-clawed little people". Himal Southasian. 2010-03-01. Retrieved 2023-01-28.